Council funds program to help performance venues

The Oklahoma City Council on Tuesday approved $7 million of additional funding from the federal CARES Act for the Oklahoma City Small Business Continuity Program. The funding includes $5 million for qualified applications already received from businesses and nonprofits and $2 million for a new program to help live performance venues.

The second phase of the SBCP program created a large response, with 586 applications for the reimbursement program for payroll or lost revenue, 128 applications for the retrofit program to help businesses with sanitation equipment and facility modifications for social distancing and 103 applications for technical assistance. The application for the second phase opened on Aug. 4 and closed by Aug. 17 with 325 qualified funding requests that reached $19.4 million, approximately 62% more than the original fund of $12 million. The additional $5 million approved Tuesday, along with the remaining balance from the first round, will provide approximately $15.4 million available for funding the reimbursement applications and $1 million for retrofit and technical assistance applications. Funding for the approved applications is expected to be dispersed by the end of August.